Tag Archives: Youtube

My husband likes to promise prizes to those who get good grades. Three trimesters of straight As, you get to do something really special.

Falling behind on prizes with our now 8th grader, who likes a challenge, the two traveled this weekend to the first regular season Falcons’ game at the new Mercedes Benz Stadium.

What’s a Denver boy doing being a Falcons fan, you ask. Who knows?

But it’s been forever, and he even produces a Falcons Youtube channel. Husband and son both came home thrilled by the experience.

Passes for on-the-field pre-game warm-ups. An invitation from a good friend to the owners’ box. The photos show our son standing, the field below, even though he describes the cushy leather chairs with the amazing view. “I was too nervous to sit.”

Photos of the stadium. Arthur Blank talking to Roger Goodell. My son with Takeo Spikes, two-time Pro Bowler. Close-up video of Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, and the tight ends who they described as 6’10” and HUGE!

“It was a Ferris Bueller kind of day,” said my husband. “We’ll remember it forever.”

“You need to get straight As,” said the 8th grader to his older brother, a Packers fan who tried hard not to be disappointed that the Falcons won. “You have to go to Lambeau. If you have a hundredth of the good time I had, it will be amazing.”

Then he added, “…and if you go, I’ll use my next three trimesters of As to go with you. How cool would that be?!”

We went on a pilgrimage from Denver to Alliance, Nebraska to watch the eclipse from the Totality Zone. I was dubious that waking up at 3am and a nearly ten-hour round trip drive through dry, brown, flat land would be worth it.

But you can’t turn down an adventure with three boys, their grandparents, and a husband willing to do all the driving. Something spectacular is bound to happen.

Like plenty of pilgrims before us, our seven did not quite make it to the “holy land”, distracted by a dirt road along train tracks that were surrounded by fields of sunflowers. Soon other weary travelers joined us. A friendly group of families and retirees and young couples from as far away as Texas – all with picnics, beach chairs, cameras and eclipse glasses.

We walked and read and chatted in the sunshine. New neighbors described having turned back from the crowded streets, lack of parking, and overflowing restaurants of Alliance, which had at least doubled its population for the event.

A field of sunflowers in the center of the Totality Zone had won our hearts.

“It started!” came the shout by a group of retirees sipping white wine.

And our kids, entertaining themselves through the slow progression, made up ideas for Youtube videos that they call “click bait” – titles, often proclaiming something ridiculously untrue, created merely to earn millions of viewers.

“Let’s shave your head and eyebrows and cover your face in green paint,” said the thirteen-year-old to his younger brother. “Aliens don’t have eyebrows. And we’ll figure out how to make your eyes bulge. I’ll make a video of the eclipse, and then we’ll layer you in pretending to eat the sun.”

Bigfoot Seen at Eclipse.

In another plan, as the temperature dropped and a strange-but-beautiful dimming of lights changed the colors of the fields around us, he suggested that his older brother “walk like Bigfoot up on the train tracks, and I’ll video the eclipse in the background.”

Then… totality. Cheers erupted down the line of pilgrims. Sudden darkness with a pink band at the horizon any way you turned. The moon and sun as one.

Every once in a while, our 8th grader will say, “You should go on a date night!”

So, you might think the boys actually like it when we leave. Freedom. Kraft Mac-n-cheese. Video games. But if it’s past 9:00, we get a text from the 7th grader, as if on cue. “When are you coming home?”

And no matter what time we return, they are all up, exploding with something to tell us, show us, read to us. And so 9:00 becomes 10:00. Or later.

When they were little, my favorite thing about date nights were that the babysitter had the kids asleep when we got home. I could tiptoe into their dimly lit rooms, kiss their warm foreheads goodnight, take a long look at their sweet faces, and go to bed. Five minutes from date to sleep. Tops. Now, I have to admit, I enjoy their need to share, as if we have been gone forever, and sleep will not come until they do.

Last night, we left for the theater at 6:00 and walked back in the house at 9:00. Perfect bedtime hour, but…

“Mom, do you want to see my Falcons’ Season in Review Youtube video? I’m not done yet, but…” So I watched ten minutes of Julio Jones beating his opponents in long touchdown runs to music.

“I’m impressed.”

“Did you see the clips with that weird reflection? I’m going to redo those. And the dark one?” Sigh, “I was hoping to get more done tonight.”

“Bedtime.”

“Mom, I started a new comic strip. Want to see it?” The third grader creates beautifully detailed illustrations, but his comic strip spelling requires pre-9:00 translation skills.

“Love it!”

He gives me a big hug. “I’m just gonna…”

“Nope. Bedtime.”

“Will you come say goodnight?”

And then the 8th grader sidles up to me, talking in a low, secretive whisper as if something is wrong. But… “You know how we’re not allowed to bring phones or iPads on the class trip? Well, I really want to finish The Book Thief. So I was thinking I could buy an iPod Shuffle.”

He spent his three hours of freedom coming up with the best way to get me to say yes to a new technology purchase. Not happening. “We have a copy of the book. You can bring that.”.

Our twelve year old has a Youtube channel reporting on the Atlanta Falcons, his favorite football team. He calls it Falcons Time. He also posts all of his basketball trick shots and his water bottle flipping records.

He reports frequently on the number of total followers and views, and compares his to the 50 per minute who sign up for Dude Perfect, who market themselves as five best friends and a Panda. If you have a preteen boy, you’ve probably heard of them.

The wild thing is that there are eight people following my son from Malaysia. Three from Sweden. “Isn’t that weird?!” he grins.